Ouachita Blackberry

The Ouachita (pronounced “wash-uh-taw”) blackberry is a high-yielding, thornless, and upright cultivar released by the University of Arkansas. Renowned for its large, sweet, and firm berries, it is ideal for fresh eating, baking, and shipping. These hardy shrubs excel in USDA Zones 6–9, requiring roughly 300-400 chill hours, and are noted for high resistance to common diseases. 

Easy-to-harvest, plump, pluckable berries!

You’ll enjoy easy maintenance and harvesting from these upright, thornless blackberry plants. The erect, thornless canes makes the Ouachita a favorite for edible landscaping in more suburban and urban spaces, as well as a great choice for homesteads and u-pick farms. 

The Ouachita thornless blackberries bear high yields of medium-size fruit with excellent eating quality. Enjoy them fresh, frozen, or baked into pies!

How to Grow Ouachita Blackberries

With relatively low maintenance, this variety is disease-resistant to rosette disease. This blackberry plant is heat-tolerant, and grows well in the south. This variety has also been successfully grown in many U.S. regions, such as in western, mid-western, and north-eastern states.

It is a summer-bearing floricane, with fruit ripening mid-season in June, before Navaho blackberries. Fruiting extends for about 5 weeks! Ouachita is self-pollinating and easy to grow. Your family will enjoy having homegrown fruit for years to come!

Growing Requirements & Characteristics

• Light: Full sun is required for best production.
• Soil: Prefers well-drained, fertile, loamy soil.
• Chill Hours: Requires roughly 300-400.
• Hardiness Zone: Thrives in USDA Zones 6–9.
• Size: Reaches 4-5 feet tall and 3-4 feet wide, with erect, sturdy canes that do not require heavy trellising.
• Planting: Best planted in early spring or late fall, spaced 3-4 feet apart.
• Care: Needs 1–2 inches of water per week during fruiting. 

Harvesting & Yield

• Ripening Time: Begins harvesting mid-season (early to mid-June), with production lasting for about 5 weeks.
• Yield: Produces high yields, with some estimates suggesting 7–13 pounds per plant.

Uses

• Excellent fresh eating, jams, jellies, and desserts.
• The firm fruit holds up well for shipping. 

Pests & Diseases

• Resistance: Excellent resistance to double blossom and orange rust.
• Pests: Generally low-maintenance; however, typical blackberry pests can be managed. 

Ouachita is highly recommended for home gardens due to its easy-care nature, lack of thorns, and consistent, high-quality production. 

The information that follows is from https://www.starkbros.com

This variety is self pollinating.

In many cases, you may still want to plant pollinating partners to increase the size of your crops, but with self-pollinating varieties doing so is optional. You’ll get fruit with only one plant!

Fertilizing Blackberry Plants

Fertilizing is an excellent way to replenish the natural nutrients in your plant’s soil. We recommend using Stark® Bro’s Blackberry and Bramble Fertilizer, which is specifically formulated for blackberries and brambles.

Fertilizing Tips

• Fertilizer should be applied each spring when new growth starts, and again just after harvest. 
• Fertilize lightly the first time.
• Do not put fertilizer directly on the plants. 
• Spring cultivation and summer mulching is very beneficial.

Pruning Blackberry Plants

Pruning is an important part of proper edible plant care, but many people find the task overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be! Keep these things in mind: 

• You can have confidence in knowing that not everyone will prune the exact same way (even the experts). 
• There are several reasons to prune: to maintain the size and shape of your plant, stimulate strong growth, and overall fruit quality.

Pruning Tips

• You may want to stake or trellis-train your berry plants to keep them more compact and upright.
• Pruning may vary depending on the blackberry variety you plant. Most berry bushes bear only once on 2-year-old canes. After the canes have produced fruit, you should prune them back to the ground to leave room for the stronger, 1-year-old canes.
• Some pruning should be done every spring to keep the plants from becoming tangled and to improve their ability to bear. Prune trailing blackberries in the spring for good growth habits. Prune each main cane back to 3-4’. Then cut back side branches to about 12”, leaving five or six buds on each. Erect and semi-erect varieties should be tipped or cut back to 3-4’ in midsummer. This forces lateral branches to emerge from buds below this point.
• Later in the fall, after they are dormant, cut back the laterals to 16-18”. Fruit will be borne on these laterals the following summer (after which, the canes should then be removed to make room for next season’s growth).

Additional Notes

• First-year or juvenile canes of erect and semi-erect varieties may be trailing. Let them grow, and they will produce fruit the next year. After the fruit is harvested, prune the canes back to the ground to make room for strong, erect, new canes.
• Everbearers fruit twice on the same cane. These canes will fruit at the tip during the fall and then bear again the following spring farther down the canes. If one large crop is desired, cut the canes back to the ground after the fall crop. This will result in a single, large crop the following fall.
• A good reference book, such as Pruning Made Easy, can answer questions and guide you through the pruning process.

Watering Blackberry Plants

Unless you’re in an area where irrigation is usually needed for normal plant growth, you probably won’t need to water after the first growing year. Until then, follow these guidelines to get your new berry plants off to a great start.

General Guidelines

• If summer brings about an inch of rainfall every 10 days or so, you won’t need to use the hose. But if it gets really dry, you can give your new plant a good, thorough soaking. The best way to do this is to let your garden hose trickle slowly. This gives the water a chance to soak in instead of running off. You can also use a soaker hose to water several plants at once.
• It’s important to note that even if you’re in the midst of a brown-lawn drought, you don’t want to water too much. Once every 10 days or two weeks is plenty. Worse than dry, thirsty roots is waterlogged, drowning roots.
• Although blackberries are drought tolerant, they do need considerable water during fruiting.

Harvesting Blackberry Plants

Are you ready to enjoy delicious homegrown fruit? Harvest is the time to enjoy the results of your hard work. Keep a few things in consideration as you reap the fruits of your labor: the best time to pick the fruit, and how to store your harvest.

When to Harvest

You can expect your first crop in the 2nd season. For the best flavor and texture harvest your blackberries when it is dry and cool. The berry should look plump and have a dark coloring. Grasp the berry gently and twist, if the fruit releases easily then it is ripe. While picking berries try to keep them in the shade and don’t stack them more than a couple inches deep in your containers, otherwise you will squash your berries. 

It is best to harvest every 2 or 3 days, to avoid over ripening or rotting fruit. Blackberries do not keep long after picking, at most 4 or 5 days in the refrigerator.

Annual average yield per plant is around 1 quart.

Storage

Refrigerate your berries immediately after harvesting. Do not wash berries until you are ready to use them. Washing makes them more prone to spoiling. 

If not able to use right away put berries on a cookie sheet in a single layer and freeze until firm and then put them in freezer bags to enjoy all year long.